Wild side of Cheung Chau in Hong Kong

Scenes of the wilder side of Cheung Chau - an island in southwest Hong Kong, during spring 2010.

Submitted by Martin Williams on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 17:50

Cheung Chau Bun Festival in Hong Kong

Submitted by Martin Williams on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 17:43

World woeful at protecting biodiversity

From BBC:

Quote:

The world's governments will not meet their internationally-agreed target of curbing the loss of species and nature by 2010, a major study has confirmed.

Virtually all species and ecosystems show continued decline, while pressures on nature are increasing, it concludes.

Published in the journal Science, the study confirms what conservationists have known for several years.

Submitted by Martin Williams on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 22:37

Drupal Views Gallery w customisation

I had long thought Drupal's Views module could help power a photo gallery, but was daunted by the prospect of actually creating one. Happily, though, KarenS has created the Views Gallery module - which makes it relatively easy to start a gallery.

Note that Views Gallery requires other modules, too: maybe you should install these first, and Views Gallery once all is ok. (I write this after Custom Pagers not working for me; not sure why.)

Submitted by Martin Williams on Sat, 01/09/2010 - 15:50

Tips on using Sanyo Xacti HD2000

Here are a few suggestions on how to use the Sanyo Xacti HD2000, which is certainly a nifty little camera.

Submitted by Martin Williams on Sun, 01/03/2010 - 23:58
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Shooting and editing at 30fps

Martin also sent me an email, and I've replied:

Quote:
Thanks for the email, and webpage comment.

Too bad re results from panning shots. First off: it's the camera, not the person doing the panning? (!)
How about place you're viewing: if computer, is it up to handling the files? If a potential issue here, you might try shooting lower quality images (smaller frame sizes), see if different.

I've barely used the Xacti at 60fps: get huge files, which I can't put to much use (not easy to edit, inc as my computer can't really cope with full Xacti files)
So, shooting at 30fps, and interlaced.

Haven't noticed issue with panning. Some trouble with lightning: can be part on half of a "frame", rest on half of next frame. Also noticed birds in flight seemed to have flickery wings: didn't see if full 60fps progressive would fix this.

So I don't know re 60fps and Final Cut Express; some notions it won't accept it so would indeed need to degrade first.

Hope this helps!

UK government behind scenes concerns re peak oil

From the Guardian:

Quote:

Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about "peak oil".

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents about "peak oil" – the point at which oil production reaches its maximum and then declines – under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, despite releasing others in which it admits "secrecy around the topic is probably not good".

Experts say they have received a letter from David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the DECC, asking for information and advice on peak oil amid a growing campaign from industrialists such as Sir Richard Branson for the government to put contingency plans in place to deal with any future crisis.

... documents obtained under the FoI Act seen by the Observer show that a "peak oil workshop" brought together staff from the DECC, the Bank of England and Ministry of Defence among others to discuss the issue.
...
an internal IEA source said: "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible, but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources."